How Auburn basketball crushed Georgia 83-60 for 14th straight win
AUBURN — Students lined up stretching around Auburn Arena to see their No. 2 Tigers in a mid-week trap game, but the most suspenseful moment was merely a disputed buzzer-beater at the end of the first half in a 23-point game.
By then, Auburn had already flexed its speed and size on Georgia, and the lucky students who gained entry were already driven hoarse by the non-stop superiority. Whether Walker Kessler's floater counted was only of relevance to those with other forms of investment in the game: Auburn was a 21.5-point favorite.
The basket counted, adding a fun footnote as the Tigers cruised past their rival Bulldogs to a 83-60 win Wednesday night, giving Auburn (17-1, 6-0 SEC) its 14th straight win to match Davidson for the nation's longest streak. It's the first time since 1959 that Auburn is 6-0 in SEC play.
"I thought we got better in the first half," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. "I thought we played pretty well, and then obviously the score was a little bit of a factor with how we played in the second half."
Balanced scoring attack of Georgians
Even after a 3-for-11 start from the field, Auburn achieved a rarity by scoring 50 points in the first half of an SEC game. It was utter dominance from a variety of scoring options — six players finished in double figures — and the gaping talent gap was extra sweet for Auburn considering its number of players from Georgia.
All eyes were on K.D. Johnson, the Atlanta native who transferred from Georgia (5-13, 0-5). He was eager to shoot against his former team, and he didn't become shy after missing his first three 3-pointers. Then he drained one in front of Georgia coach Tom Crean, igniting the guard to a 12-point performance.
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Atlanta's Jabari Smith totaled 12 points and seven rebounds. Kessler, also from Atlanta, led the Tigers with 15 points and six blocks even while Georgia frequently double-teamed him inside. Jaylin Williams of Nahunta, Georgia, provided 13 points and five rebounds off the bench in one of his best performances this season.
Dylan Cardwell and Zep Jasper — both of Augusta, Georgia — combined for 7 more points, adding constant reminders of Auburn's recent recruiting prowess in the Bulldogs' home state.
Wendell Green Jr. leads pick-and-roll
Another double-digit scorer was backup point guard Wendell Green Jr., who put up a double-double with 12 points and 11 assists.
"Pretty spectacular," Pearl said. "Fun to watch."
Green's crafty ballhandling and passing were useful tools again in Auburn's pick-and-roll offense — it burned Georgia with a lot of the same ball-screen action that helped beat Alabama, Saint Louis and other opponents.
"Shoutout to my teammates," he said. "They finished around the rim. They hit open shots. Assists are a two-way street."
In a continuing trend, the bench outscored Georgia's 31-9.
Astronomical 3-point attempts
Auburn recently established a brief trend of not shooting as many 3-pointers as is typical of a Bruce Pearl team: At one point, the Tigers combined for 31 attempts in a pair of SEC wins.
That trend, evidently, is dead. The Tigers tried a season-high 36 shots from outside, which was a reflection of Georgia's poor perimeter defense and incessant double-team attempts inside. Still, Auburn only made 10 (27.8%) of those shots, so it's an area in which it will want to be more efficient against less forgiving opponents.
"I liked most of our threes in the first half," Pearl said. "I think we had a couple guys settle, and we didn't do a good enough job of getting to the rim."
On the other hand, even when the Tigers looked sluggish for a chunk of the second half, the 3-pointer saved them. Georgia went on an 8-0 run, switching to zone and cutting it to 61-45, when Green and Smith hit back-to-back 3-pointers. Any comeback dreams died there.
Conserving minutes without key depth option
Being on a Wednesday-Saturday schedule this week gives Auburn less time to refresh and prepare for an upcoming top-15 clash.
Against Georgia, conserving starters' minutes became a slightly more difficult task without walk-on guard Lior Berman. Pearl still went 10 deep but stuck with some of his rotations for long stretches during the second half. Six played more than 20 minutes; nobody played more than Kessler's 27.
Up next
Auburn hosts No. 12 Kentucky (15-3, 5-1) on Saturday (noon, CBS) at Auburn Arena.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: How Auburn basketball crushed Georgia 83-60 for 14th straight win
